INTRODUCTION

iEARN, one of the largest and most experienced online educational networks for teenagers in the world held its annual conference in Kosice, Slovakia from the 11th to the 17th of July, 2020. It brought together innovative teachers, students, administrators, youth and education leaders, representing an array of cultures and backgrounds, showcasing the latest ideas and initiatives in online collaborative and project-based learning, and to discuss the future of ICT in education, youth empowerment, and teaching and learning in general.

OBJECTIVES & OUTCOMES

A part of our core focus over the latter part of the FY04 is to initiate the Spanish L.C; a higher success rate in the September Learning Circles; and harnessing potential networks and organisations for our East Europe operations. This we worked within at the iEARN conference in two categories:

Networking: A main objective of this trip was to tap into the iEARN network of practitioners particularly as it aligns with our ‘Bigger’ strategy to Latin America for the Spanish Learning Circle and the establishment of our presence in Asia in the next few years.

We successfully met up with Adriana Villela of World links, Latin America; …of iEARN Spain; as well as …of Argentina who have institutional support from the EU and are seeking Spanish oriented Education programmes to participate in. These were not limited to funding partners but also Resource based who can strengthen the GTP in its weak places.

Ed Gragert of iEARN USA also expressed an interest in working with the GTP in establishing links with contacts in Rwanda and Ethiopia. We will also be exploring over the course of the next few months the possibility to partner on implementation in Mozambique and the potential of iEARN as a regional partner for the GTP.

We also met up with an organisation called Radio Waves based in the U.K. which provides a channel for potentially sharing content created by the learners and teachers within GTP.

Learning & Sharing experience: GTP had a slot booked in collaboration with two of its partner countries – Netherlands and Ukraine to present the GTP and its Learning Circle on the first day. The Learning circle simulation was led by Bob Hoffman while the PM’s did a brief on SNA, the GTP as a whole and the way forward and ‘deliverables’ for the GTP in the next two years. We had present teachers who are currently participating in the GTP from Senegal, Ukraine, Suriname and the United States as well as those who have shown interest in becoming a part of the process from Thailand, Iran, and United States with their classes. We will be exploring these new relationships over the next few weeks.

ACTION POINTS

Over the next few weeks and months we will be following up intensively with iEARN’s ED Gragert, contact practitioners and organisations from Spain, Argentina; Ms. Mookda Phongtiwattanakul of Thailand and Adriana Villela of World Links.

iEARN 2020 will be hosted by iEARN Senegal and they with the representatives of the assembly of iEARN have asked that SchoolNet Africa support them. We indicated we would table this before the organisation as a whole.

Source: Globalteeanager project